


We Were Not Tragedies

by must_be_mythtaken



Category: The Avengers (Marvel) - All Media Types
Genre: F/M, Inspired by Fanfiction, Poetry, Remix
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-10-13
Updated: 2015-10-13
Packaged: 2018-04-26 04:27:15
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 645
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4990177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/must_be_mythtaken/pseuds/must_be_mythtaken
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>A ledger's a ledger,<br/>however it's kept. A battle's a battle,<br/>whether you’re a soldier or not.</p>
            </blockquote>





	We Were Not Tragedies

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [we were emergencies](https://archiveofourown.org/works/405828) by [gyzym](https://archiveofourown.org/users/gyzym/pseuds/gyzym). 



> I had an assignment for a poetry class where we had to take some existing prose and, using line breaks, turn it into a poem. I'm a nerd so I used the amazing ["we were emergencies](http://archiveofourown.org/works/405828?view_adult=true#children) by [gyzym](http://archiveofourown.org/users/gyzym/pseuds/gyzym) and since I'm pretty happy with how it turned out, I thought I'd post it here.

We Were Not Tragedies

1.

Clint is pretty sure that  
normally  
he’d offer up a pithy comment, a quick retort,  
something; now  
             he lays back against the bed, the cotton duvet cool against his arms,  
and says nothing at all.

When he recognizes the pattern  
on the ceiling,  
he has to close his eyes and breathe through the  
jarring  
sense of unreality he’s been drinking himself out of for  
             the last week. There are too many places  
he could start here, and not enough  
stopping points.

What’s worse,  
he’s got no idea how far he can trust any of those starting places,  
those  
stopping points,  
all the things that once made up a life he could count on.  
"Right, okay. Supposing, for argument's sake, I told you  
             we were in love and you forgot about it--how would you react?"

"Doubtfully to badly, depending on your presentation. When's the last time you slept?"

"With or without  
the aid of alcohol?"

"Either way." "Thursday,"  
Clint admits. He cracks

one eye open and sees her staring,  
the less-than-casual assessment in her gaze, and yeah,  
              sure,  
he knows what she's seeing.

The circles  
under his eyes are  
worse than they were when he was Loki's, his  
              hands are  
shaking, he hasn't washed,  
he hasn't eaten--he knows how  
to recognize unstable the same way she does, knows  
she's seeing in him what he's seen,  
a few times too many, in her.

“Look, I know—“  
"You don't," Natasha says.

She sits down  
             next to him  
                           soundlessly,  
eliciting not even  
one creak  
from the mattress, and Clint marvels,  
distantly, at the way she skirts the laws of physics  
like they're simply asinine suggestions.

"If you did,  
you wouldn't even be talking about this.  
             Love is for children, Clint.  
You know that."

Clint has to close his eyes  
again; when he speaks, his voice is a haggard whisper.  
He'd be embarrassed,  
            but,  
                          well.

"You haven't believed that in years."  
                                                      "I've believed that all my life."

 

2.

For the first hour,  
he's mostly numb, soaked  
through and  
             stuck in a loop-- I'm alone  
alone  
             alone, an echo  
he'd fight to keep from forgetting, a truth  
he'll cling to come hell  
or high water.

Eventually  
the steady pace of picking his way  
              through the underbrush,  
the soothing,  
                           distant hiss of rain  
against the canopy,  
lulls him into a sense of security he's not even sure is false.

He lets himself

             drift 

and lands,  
unsurprisingly,  
on Natasha, terror in her eyes  
             with his palm in her hand,  
             the sharp disbelief in Lisbon.

"I can't deny that it's a possibility," she said,  
"or that I wish it wasn't,"  
and at the time  
Clint thought that was a dig at him,  
a slight, revulsion  
at the idea that she could love him  
the way he was suggesting.

Now he lets himself look at it honestly, not  
as the Clint Barton he once was but  
as the Clint Barton he might still be,  
and realizes  
the fear had nothing to do with him at all.

 

3.

A ledger's a ledger,  
however it's kept. A battle's a battle,  
whether you’re a solider or not.

Here is something that’s true:

a nightmare once told Clint that  
in the end, he would always kneel;  
a dream once taught him not to.

He grows  
around both of these realities until  
they're part of him, until  
he is better and worse for them, until

who he is raises a glass to  
who he's been,  
who he will be, and  
who he never was.

There is no way to measure  
the worth of a life, but  
for his sins, Clint knows  
he's earned  
              himself.

Here is something that's true:

two years later, Clint turns to Natasha in a firefight,  
bullets flying and lightning  
             renting the air,  
             opens his mouth, and says,  
"You love me."

Here is something that's true:  
Natasha says, "I know."


End file.
